Onomatopoeia
by Emma CS Me
Summary: Six students died; as those who crash at the bottom of cliffs are wont to do. Dead people are people. 3 - "There was never any comfort in God for her. She thinks there might have been; in another world."
1. Be A Man

_A/N: One of the few fics I have a clear idea where it came from. This was done due to one of the major complaints about season 2's main mystery - that the victims of the bus crash just weren't defined enough as characters, to interest us in the mystery. I still liked the mystery, but I see the basis of the complaint. So this fic will address the characters of the 6 students on the bus, hoping to flesh them out. So let us begin..._

* * *

**BE A MAN**

"Kid? What are you doing?"

It's not like he expected his father to give a shit, so he didn't bother answering. Dad took another swig of his beer and Peter sighed. That would have disappointed him if he had still cared. He didn't care, however, given what caring had a history of doing. That had made him want to get out of the house as a kid, and of course, that plan had only gotten him shoved on his knees; _Come on, be a good boy, be strong for me, open that pretty mouth of yours, take it like a man, be a man for me, Petey._

He shuddered and tried to suppress the bile rising in his throat, like he always did whenever _It_ sneaked into his mind, just for a second. He shook the thought away – it wasn't important anymore.

- - -

The day he came out was somewhat chaotic. There were blinks and shrugs that pissed him off, like it didn't matter, but then there was a lot of confusion and I bunch of people who nodded and said they had kind of guessed. He liked that; the feeling that they were paying attention enough to guess.

Dad was livid, of course.

"No. No fucking way!" he was shouting, words slurred because this was _his dad_ after all, but he suddenly was angry enough to smash the beer bottle into tiny pieces, despite it being only half-empty.

_Shit? He'll waste alcohol? We are playing for real now._

Peter wasn't scared, of course. "Yeah? Well fuck you."

Dad shook his head. "Listen you little faggot – I said no way. No fucking way is a son of mine-"

"Yeah yeah, homophobic bullshit. I got it the first time, I said "fuck you.""

"God, tell me this crap isn't like, about your mother or some shit."

Peter bursts out laughing at the idea that his mother had something to do with anything. Bitch had run out when he was five, and he gave up on caring or even trying to remember her a long time ago. She could go fuck herself, for all he cared.

"What, you think this is just some sort of "no-mother-figure" thing? Please. Sorry Daddy, the "likes dick" gene got through somehow, deal – probably came from you, so..."

He barely felt the whack of his dad's hand. Drunk homophobic abusive asshole, that was daddy dearest. "Don't you fucking dare, you son of a bitch. You get your act together, be a fucking man, no son of mine's gonna be a weak queer pussy..."

Daddy Dearest probably wasn't expecting to get punched in the face. "I'm not weak," Peter told him through gritted teeth. He wasn't weak. He could afford to be – no, it wasn't about what was necessary. It was just fact. He wasn't fucking weak.

Dad shrugged and wiped some blood away from his nose. "Well, for a fag, you've got a hell of a left hook."

Under normal circumstances, Peter would respond to that with snark. At that moment, he could only manage to repeat himself: "I'm not weak."

- - -

The only person who was angrier than Dad was Marcos, and no, Peter didn't really seem that one coming. It wasn't any of his business and none of that really mattered anymore, he expected Marcos to know that. However Marcos looked at him like they were at all relevant to each other, Marcos looked angry, and Peter just _hated_ that because god, he was pathetic, clinging to what had been and what had fucked him up so badly. Peter thought he was better than that.

Peter also didn't really see coming that Marcos's reaction to being fucked up and pissed off would be to slam him into the wall of the bathroom and jerk him off as quickly as he could, but hey, what the hell?

He went with it; he groaned in the right places, he acted like a good boy for Pathetic Angry Marcos, he laughed when he thought maybe, probably, he hadn't technically consented to this. Marcos finished him off getting come across his wrist, and Peter chose to find it funny instead of nauseating.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Marcos asked a question. "Do you ever think about him?"

"No," Peter replied quickly, and he refused to believe it was a lie. He didn't think about It. He wouldn't acknowledge It. The few seconds when It occurred to him were mistakes, that was all.

"Bullshit," Marcos swore at him, and Peter rolled his eyes.

"You're pathetic, you know?"

Marcos just shrugged. "I know."

And they went their separate ways, and did not talk again for months. It was only idle curiosity that made Peter wonder about Cassidy, and when those puppy-dog eyes avoided his, he just smirked.

Pathetic.

- - -

He was drunk and upset and the music was very loud, so he could be forgiven for the fact he was carrying this conversation without much thought to the words.

He was-

"I was here because of my cousin-"

an-

"I am in a position of authority-"

idiot.

"Sorry."

He nodded, and he felt words that he couldn't quite decipher through booze and disappointment spill over his lips, and it was just too fucking confusing. Because he had _understood_ this, he had understood the rules of that, of teasing smiles and help with questions he understood just fine, of jokes from his classmates and how to just _be a good boy._

Except he hadn't.

He vaguely acknowledged he was swearing and Wu was looking so compassionate, _Don't you dare, do you dare you bastard,_ his mind tried to warn and he was just too drunk to stop things bleeding into each other, to separate past and present and to block of all compassionate faces; _It's okay, I can help you, I just need you to help me, we'll be friends, good friends, just help me with something, be a good strong man and help me, okay?_

His head spun around with the beat of the music until he had spun into next week and Ms. James's office, until she was asking questions like any good counselor, and he just _hated_ it because she was trying to peer inside his head, to get her fingers in him and he was too strong to let them get their hands on him again.

It didn't show at all to her; the moment when he realized he had let himself think about It again.

- - -

When Woody Goodman announced his intention to run for County Supervisor, _everything_ shattered. Shattered like Peter wouldn't come out of his room for days, not that anyone was there to notice. Shattered like it left him puking into the toilet bowl for hours, far longer than should have been possible given how little he could eat with the thought of that bastard in charge of the county; and when he couldn't he'd dry-heave instead, trying to spit out the aftertaste of someone else's semen; seeing the shit-eating grin, the perfect persona; spreading out to all the folks across Neptune; _Trust me, help me, let me love you. Stay still, be strong, be good for me._

He shivered and wondered; he had to _stop it_ and he was no going to let himself cry because of what happened, whether it mattered or not, he didn't cry, he didn't break, he _wasn't fucking weak._

He breathed deeply and okay, fine, he could let it matter, but he could be strong. He could fight, he could make the bastard pay, he could reclaim every little instruction Woody had given him with that grin, he could save the rest of them, he could through his own orders around; _get up off your knees, kid. Get up and fight._

Peter was choosing how to be a good boy.

- - -

He wasn't hyperventilating, he wasn't panicking. He wasn't nauseous or clutching at the crinkly uncomfortable fake leather he was sitting on, as if he had to hold on to something or he would self-destruct.

Except, you know, he was, and that was just pathetic.

Marcos wouldn't look him in the eye, and that was just annoying because, well, fuck Marcos and how did he get this pathetic, this weak? How did he become broken and stressed like Marcos and Cassidy were, even as Marcos tried to help, to take revenge, Marcos who seemed so close to being like him except he wasn't, except he was.

_Calm down,_ Peter told himself. _Stop it, just be calm, be normal, be strong. Calm the fuck down. Help them all, be good for them, don't lose your nerve, be strong, speak out, open that pretty little mouth of yours, come on Peter Ferrer, just **be a fucking man already!**_

Boom.

_Or not. Up to you, really._

**END**

_

* * *

_

_Next: Cervando Luna._

_"Look to the surface, raise yourself up, higher, stronger. Look toward the light; bettering yourself can wait until you're not dead."_


	2. Levels

**LEVELS**

_Up,_ was the only thing he could think. _Higher, get to the surface, come on man, don't breathe yet, get to the surface, you can do this._

Valiantly he struggled against the current, the movement of the water pushing him back down. _Come on, it's just water, it's fine, you can swim, come on, all you need to do is get to the surface._

He was running out of oxygen quickly, he needed to get up, he needed to win. He remembered his mother's voice whispering in his ear; _you're a smart boy Cervando, you'll go far. Be a better person for me, make something of yourself for me._

He had tried, he had always tried and given how smart he had become, he was pretty successful. But at that moment, being successful, being _better_, relied on getting to the surface of the water. To get to that glimmer of sun he could barely see beneath the water; _Look to the surface, raise yourself up, higher, stronger. Look toward the light; bettering yourself can wait until you're not dead._

He held on to his breath tighter; he hadn't breathed in at least a couple of minutes – it felt like hours. He still couldn't remember what even happened; one moment they were all laughing on the bus, waiting to get back to Neptune, trying to ignore the stench. Instead, they laughed at Betina's messages, about _her_ fucking Dick Casablancas.

And now, at least a few of them were dead – the sudden impact would be enough to kill most, he wasn't all that sure how he had made it through the crash, not that he was ungrateful – now he just had to not drown.

He knew he had seen an explosion before the bus went over; a _boom_ before the screams, the bomb that took out the driver and sent them all off the cliff. _Sabotage,_ thought Cervando grimly, wondering who would actually do that. Echolls, maybe? The bastard's case over Felix's murder was thrown out, but cases didn't always stay that way, so maybe taking out a PCHer would benefit him.

Two of them gone in under a year – or not, as long as he reached the surface eventually. _Don't breathe yet, come on man, swim harder, don't drown, hold your breath, you are not gonna die because of whatever this killer did._

Of course, maybe it wasn't about him at all. There were what, eight people on that bus? Anyone of them could have someone wanting them dead – hey, Betina with her issues with Dick Casablancas, her trying to humiliate him, probably didn't have him all happy she existed. He had met Dick – son of a bitch sprayed bleach all over his two hundred dollar jeans for _no_ reason. He had gone and taken it out on Beaver, hey, little brother, practically the same. He knew spraying bleach was on the very different level to mass-murder, but hey, he wasn't exactly overflowing with people with motives – partly because he barely knew anyone on that bus.

Fuck it, those jeans were important. It was like a symbol thing; he'd gotten that cash from the Fitzpatricks, the big scary Fitzpatricks that he had ripped off. Everyone got to know how he had hustled it from them, he was proud, and he was sure they were fuming somewhere, wishing he'd just shut up-

_Shit._

He shook the thought away. Yeah, it was possible, but it didn't seem their style. They'd deal with him if they really cared that much, with a baseball bat in a dark alley. Taking out a bus full of his classmates just for him was a bit much, even by their standards.

No reason to feel guilty.

Cervando had no oxygen left in his lungs, and when he looked up, he realized his thrashing hadn't gotten him any closer to the surface. His lips began to part in imitation of breath, even as his conscious mind was screaming; _No! Don't breathe, get to the surface, moron!_

Yet he couldn't resist and his lungs burnt with the effort, so soon his mouth did open; water seeping in, filling every single alveoli. He continued to struggle against the water, now accepting it pointless, but he would not die without a fight. Years with the PCHers had taught him that.

He saw corpses floating to the ground with him; sickening remains of his fellow students. None of them were struggling, and Cervando was fairly sure they were all already dead. He could only count three of them however; Betina and the other girl, plus a guy he didn't know. Cervando, against his will, sunk with them.

All was dark and quiet as Cervando's lungs filled with water, and the thrashing of his arms stopped.


	3. To Say Grace

**TO SAY GRACE**

Her little sister had giggled once; when she was five and the whole family was saying "Grace." The pun entertained her, and the fifteen year old Meg Manning had winced. The rest of the family continued to eat their dinner as if they had heard nothing, but when they finished Grace had been locked in the closet in her room (each sister had a cupboard in their room) for hours. Meg had wanted to stop it; but she had always known she wasn't that powerful, wasn't that good.

* * *

Meg once asked Lizzie for something – neither of them were entirely sure what. It _was_ in regards to their parents; maybe it was help, or just comfort. Some sort of validation for her angst.

Lizzie wasn't been capable of that, however. "Yeah, they're nuts. Since when is that news?" she fluttered over-mascaraed eyelashes at her older sister, and Meg thought of who Lizzie was to their parents. They had tried again and again to break the girl's rebellious, wild habits; they called her a slut and devil-child, but Lizzie had simply called out "_I'd rather go to hell than be anywhere near your heaven!"_ Lizzie had always been good at denying their God; she had managed not to care at all when their parents gave up, declared her beyond saving. Meg almost envied her little sister; or maybe just pitied her.

"It... I don't know," she whimpered pathetically. "It hurts," she couldn't remember have previously said that in her life, it had seemed too obvious. She wasn't sure what was motivating this talk now, but she guessed it didn't matter.

Something in Lizzie's face bristled, but she just shrugged it off. "Yeah, well, you let it, Big Sis. The day you stop playing the perfect daughter, stop caring what they think of you? You'll be letting go of a lot of pain."

Meg wondered how on Earth she was meant to do that, then.

* * *

She knew she'd never forgive the purity test; even if not a single person would see her rage (no-one ever saw her rage). Meg was always good at hiding her anger, her disgust – she had to be, to survive her family. She knew it wasn't as bad as it felt in her mind; that rumors were rumors and everyone, deep down, _did_ know she would never do those things – but calling her a whore was more fun.

Yet things were different and she was different; _they_ were different. They hadn't known that she was innocent at heart; what use did they have for those they could not judge? Her father had searched her room and found the letters from Andreas; _God_ she was petrified then. She had done nothing wrong, but it was easier to judge her.

The closet was like it always was; dark and enclosed. They left the letters in there with her, a reminder of her "sin", even though it was far too dark to read. She brought her knees toward her chin and felt like she had been judged – judged, and found guilty.

* * *

She once asked a preacher for help. It had been confession; and she had given Him one last chance. She looked for absolution where she was meant to, but somehow, it went just like she expected. The priest had quoted a passage at her – _holier than thou_, how fitting – and it had meant nothing at all. She had confessed her vengeful, hurtful thoughts and the word of God still bounced right off that. She thanked the priest and left by her family's side; father clenching his jaw, terrified of what sin his oldest daughter might have to confess – he managed to follow the Good Book's instruction; to make her confession stay hers.

There was never any comfort in God for her. She thinks there might have been; in another world where she wasn't the daughter of Rose and Stewart Manning. God is Love and Love is Strength; but somehow none of it was ever for her; somehow they had washed all that off with the water they christened her with, leaving pain and fear.

In the evening, while her parents had gone to their church group, she had gone to Duncan's and sinned. She had asked him to love her; _make_ love to her and he had. It was slow and tender and everything she always wanted to be, and while she lied beneath him she was thinking of a world where this was what was meant for her.

* * *

Lucky unsettled her beyond belief. He turned his head up to heaven with her parents; and that was more than enough reason to hate him in Meg's mind. However, it was made worse by the knowledge it was at heart a lie; it _felt_ like a lie. Meg saw him by beer for guys like Dick and Logan, getting involved in their high school wars, yet somehow that felt like a lie too. There never seemed to be anything real in him except for some undefined _pain_; Meg never liked seeing things through a looking glass. Maybe that was why her parents wanted Lucky for her; maybe that was why she was so unnerved by him – their matching negative charges repelled one another, but somehow it meant nothing to those who saw them.

She had sobbed one night he had come to dinner. She had excused herself as politely as she could and cried quietly, another straw upon the camel's back. Lucky had found her, and looked, curious.

"I am the sword of righteousness," he began, and she was uncertain. Was that a bible passage, another one of His oppressive words? She couldn't be sure. "I smite down those who sin the worst; those that sin and claim it holy."

She shivered. "What's that? I don't remember that passage."

Lucky shook his head. "Not a passage. A message. I am God, Meg."

"Liar." She still hated him, after all.

* * *

The child seemed born of pain and fear and Him; wrapped in her flesh. She thought of the Madonna as she stared at the pale blue lines; would there be innocence left for her? Could she have been born free of original sin, to hold that last hope for heaven?

She remembered it was Mary who was the immaculate conception, not Jesus. Her parent had drilled that into her mind, but stating it to her peers had only gotten raised eyebrows and _"Who cares?"_

She waited. Life went on and the baby grew strong inside her; Strength is Love and Love is God, and again she was His pawn, their pawn. Her youngest sister grew further and further into the dark, and Meg finally chose to save them. An email and a letter set her plans in motion, and on a good day the love felt real.

* * *

The bus was just a vehicle; the bomb just a weapon; the crash just death. She heard a bang and tires skidding; yet it still wouldn't feel true. She and her classmates screamed at their fate; the ocean currents mixing with blood made her think of the Lord; how the Roman soldier had pierced his side, drawn blood and water.

Was that who she was? The savior, who died for everyone else's sins? If she was, then why was saving them so very, very ugly for her, why was she never thanked? Did she have the right, to ask for that?

The water thrashed around and when her head finally smashed against the cliff surface, she felt she had found some peace.

* * *

White ceilings burned her eyes upon her awakening, and she knew she was alone. Her stomach had swelled due to the pregnancy; how long was she unconscious?

Meg thought. She had never had a death wish, but there was nothing good or strong in waking up in a hospital bed alone. She asked questions; why had she been unlucky? Why had she not survived her parents? Why had she become a teen mother? Why, if she was free of original sin, had the price for that been the holy spirit? _Why, why, why, why, why,_ she asked, but He had never been there to answer.

Her parents screamed and judged; Duncan and Veronica tried to help. None of it mattered, even when the thought of her child being hurt killed her. Then there was blood and water again; her chest throbbed and her vagina was worse. She was surrounded by doctors and nurses; drugs and tables. She looked sideways to see her father praying for her; the irony hurt so bad she sobbed. She pushed the baby out as hard as she could, somehow getting shit all over the doctors' hands. It was ugly and brutal and it _hurt_; was there not meant to be beauty in this? Why was there never any beauty in her story?

She turned her face to God and accepted the void she was shown; the screaming, wriggling baby crawled out of her. She forgot to care if it was a boy or girl. Meg's eyes shut fast and her chest stung; she died in a harsh white room on a bed stained with blood and shit. There was no grace at all in it, not for her.


End file.
